July 31, 2021
Day 80 - Neskowin, OR to Nahalem Bay state park, OR
Coasting
We slept in a little at Nancy's and I had an overnight flat. I ignored it while I ate breakfast and packed some other things. Since the coast is so humid, all my stuff is still wet from yesterday. We packed up and I finally fixed my flat, although I didn't find what caused it. Mark had gone to the cafe for breakfast so we met him over there and met a friendly local bunny who lives in the garden there.
We headed off north towards our destination manzanita. We stopped in Pacific city to try and get some second breakfast, but everywhere was packed with tourists. It's Saturday, so we really didn't time this well. We found a spot for coffee and a bagel and continued up the road. E head seen some cool coastline stuff at that town and Alex wanted to check it out so he stayed behind for a hike while mark, Mary and I continued on.
We came to a left turn and shortly after, I got another flat. Mark carried on up the hill and I checked it out. We finally found two hidden tire wires imbedded and removed them with tweezers. I patched both tubes and put one in and it seemed good. We climbed the big hill and at the top had some crazy wind event. It must have been the rock formation we were on but all the wind and fog was funneling up the mountainside. It was also raining a bit and really cold.
So I wanted to get down quick bit the views of the split rocks were too good to pass up. We made it to the bottom near a popular clamming area and ate some wraps on the side of the road. All the sudden Chris, Dan, Meghan, and Ed (and the twins!) descended on us from nowhere. They had booked a week at Rockaway beach for the first week in August and I had thought we were going to miss them by a day, so it was totally surprising to see them. They had just seen us on the road and I'm sure they were as shocked as we were.
After chatting for a few minutes we took off again and found mark at the next pull out only a tenth of a mile away. It was too bad Alex was somewhere behind us and Mark was just around the corner because it would have been awesome to have the group all together for that occasion. Mark, Mary and I continued on and found Alex already at Fred Meyers in Tillamook.
The whole town of Tillamook smelled like a feed lot and it was weird to see people lined up outside to get into the creamery when it smelled so bad. This Fred Meyers was more like a Walmart, so we bought food for lunch and a few snacks and ate out on the sidewalk again. We had a few more miles to get to manzanita so we pushed on, planning to eat at a Thai restaurant in town before camping at Nehalem bay state park.
The food at mighty Thai was excellent and we rode a mile down to the park. the park had no vacancy, but they have hiker biker sites that we just walked into. It was only $8 per person and has showers, charging stations and a bike repair stand. Oregon state parks are awesome so far (including smith rock and this so far). Even though I was tired, we hung out until almost 10 since it was our last night all together. Tomorrow we get to Astoria and Marks friend Zach will pick him up to go to Portland and Alex will continue his journey towards Alaska. I did sleep really well though, and was sad to hear some of the last bed farts of the trip.
As an aside about the farts, we have been farting alot: on the bike, off the bike, during sleep, and mid conversation with strangers. I think we lost our sense of regular society around week 2. We eat chips off the ground, and everyone we run into and fart with is instantly intrigued, befriended, and slightly disgusted. Usually, I know it's time to get up in the morning because marks alarm goes off (6 am, the usual), he rolls around on his crinkly air mat, and let's out a modest but vocal fart. This happens most mornings and has become part of our routine, among other farts. Furthermore, a team goal we have is to fart in front of a stranger, during conversation with said stranger, and not laugh or smile: something we have yet to accomplish as a group.
Mileage:65
Altitude gain:3k
Today's ride: 65 miles (105 km)
Total: 4,204 miles (6,766 km)
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